It's Not What It Looks Like!
by Brandon Payne
Summary: Kentaro Sakata really needs to think ahead about the simplest things.


It's a warm and sunny day down at the Hinata Sou. Inside, KeNtaro, not KeItaro, is at work moving boxes around in the storage room. He feels frustrated over not being able to get close to Naru. No, not since Keitaro had entered the scene. Then there was that whole fiasco of trying to promote her as a rock star, only to have her blow it all away with a violent act upon Keitaro that got caught on picture by some paparazzi. That cost him a pretty yen, forcing him to have to work at the Hinata Sou in order to repay his debts.

As he leaves the storage room, he sees Naru entering a shed. Suddenly, he feels a stirring within himself. If he can just sweet talk her, maybe he can steal a kiss from her. Surely she must feel something for him. He simply cannot understand what she sees in a crude klutz like Keitaro, while he himself is the polar opposite.

Yet he needed to return inside once again to do an errand. As he walks down the hallway, he thinks some more about wanting to take that chance. Sure, she has a brutal temper, but if he can just play this right, then he will disarm her.

His steps falter a little, forcing him to stop. He stands there as he thinks long and hard about what to do. Knowing that he has nothing else to lose, he next chooses to act upon his feelings as he turns and walks with a sense of purpose now, even taking his breath freshner from out of his pocket to freshen his breath along the way.

As he approaches the shed, he sees that it's dark inside. He peeks inside and flicks a switch twice to discover that the electricity is out. That is when he sees a figure in the dark off to one side, just barely noticable in the light. By the fullness of her hair, he can tell that it's Naru.

_Perfect_, he thought. _The darkness will set the mood_.

"So there you are," he crooned as he starts walking up to her.

She's about to speak.

"No, wait! Just hear me out, okay?" Kentaro quickly silenced her with his hands and voice raised. He takes a deep breath and finally stops close to her. Very close. He finally begins in his usual elequent manner.

"I have been in love with you ever since I first saw you. You set my passion ablaze. You fill my dreams. In them, I am making love to you; though it be forbidden to me in real life. Such is the most titilating kind of love. You're a radiant beauty, so I cannot help but to feel that way about you. So just please, can you at least please grace me with this?"

And he quickly, yet gracefully, kisses her deeply, sticking his tongue in her mouth. She muffles a yelp through his kiss.

With a click, the light comes on and Kentaro breaks away to see who has intruded in on him and Naru. It's Kitsune, and her eyes are wide with shock with her pupils as pinpricks.

"Look, I know it makes me look bad," Kentaro announced grandly as he quickly steps back. "But I am deeply in love with this girl, so I just-" as he turns to look at Naru.

Only to see that she had been a now utterly stunned Sarah all along, causing him to jump back and shriek with outrage.

_Sarah enters the shed in the darkness, obviously not knowing where the switch is located. She is soon followed by Naru, who flicks the switch on._

"_Where did you say that box of clothes is at?" Sarah asked as she looks up at one of the shelves._

"_It's up on the top shelf," Naru answered as she enters. "There's two boxes actually. I just need you to help me carry one of them."_

_Naru reaches up on the top shelf for a box before the lights went out, plunging the interior into pitch-darkness._

"_Oh great!" Naru lamented._

"_What happened! Did a fuse blow or something?"_

_Naru makes her way over to the door and fiddles with the switch._

"_Yes, it's a fuse. Wait here, so I can go change it. And it looks like I miscounted and found another box. Looks like I'm going to have to get more help down here."_

_Sarah sits upon the barrel in the dark. A few minutes later, someone enters. With them in the light, she can see that it's that worker, Kentaro, the guy who claims to be Naru's old boyfriend. He looks at her then fiddles with the switch._

"_So there you are," he crooned as he starts walking up to her._

_Sarah is about to ask him what he wanted, when he spoke up, telling her to hear him out. So she merely sits there and listens to him saying lovey-dovey things. The longer she listens, the more disturbing it gets. But at the same time, she finds it to be oh-so-funny. When Naru returns, he is going to have such a red face for this. And of course, she will be telling everything that was said to her._

_Only that all changes when he suddenly grabs her and sticks his tongue into her mouth. For that brief second, Sarah is too stunned to react. Finally, she feels panic well up in her and muffles a cry to get him to stop. The lights came on and he breaks away to turn his attention to Kitsune, professing his undying love about herself, before finally taking notice of herself and jumping back with a scream._

"I thought it was Naru!" Kentaro shrieked hysterically with a horrified expression as he waves his arms around. "It was dark! All I could see was her outline! And her sitting upon that barrel made her look taller too!"

That is when Sarah gives him a roundhouse kick to the side of the face, causing him to fall.

"You should've heard the things he was saying to me!" She shouted at Kitsune with a bewildered expression while pointing at him. "Telling me he fell in love with me when he first saw me!"

"What's going on here!?" Naru shouted, followed closely by the others.

"I just caught Kentaro sucking face with Sarah, that's what!" Kitsune squealed.

"He said he was in love with me then stuck his tongue in my mouth!" Sarah exclaimed as she points at the accused.

"I thought it was you, Naru!" Kentaro wailed as he stands. "It was dark and-!"

"Kentaro," Naru hissed as she stalks toward him with fist raised and eyes glowing red while being surrounded by a red aura of malice. "You claimed to be in love with me all that time, when all along, you turn out to be a pedophile!? You're worse than Keitaro!" Ending with a shout.

"I keep telling you that-!" Kentaro sobbed.

"Shut up!" Naru snarled as she winds up and punches him, sending him flying through the wall.

Now it's Motoko's turn, while wearing an expression that means doom and brandishing her katana aloft.

"So it finally turns out that you have an abhorrent lust for innocent little girls who have yet to enter womanhood," she began in a low and deadly tone, "then so brazenly attempted to satisfy it here upon these grounds by stealing Sarah-chan's innocence!?" Ending in a near-shriek that has her shaking and her pupils as glaring pinpricks. "You are clearly possessed by an evil spirit that spawns such sexual deviation! I will purify you of it!" As she finally raises her katana.

"No, please, I keeping telling you-!" Kentaro's scream fell upon deaf ears.

THUNDERCLAP SWORD, SECOND STRIKE!

Motoko unleashes her power with a swing of her katana, causing a wave of power to wash through Kentaro. It's a technique that is meant to dispel evil spirits. Only nothing happens as he is not possessed.

"I guess it's not an evil spirit after all," Keitaro said.

"I'm telling you it was not what it looked like!" Kentaro wept this time. "I sincerely thought that it was Naru in the darkness that I was talking to then kissing! I'm not a pedophile!"

"He's telling the truth," Haruka said casually. "Seeing as to how hysterical he's getting."

"And during the last summer festival," Kitsune then added, "he did attempt to make a pass at me. So what does that show you, Naru?"

"It shows me that he meant to grab me and kiss me in the dark," she scowled as she stalks toward him once again. "He meant to force himself upon poor defenseless me!"

"Well . . . I . . . uh . . . since you make it sound that way-" Kentaro said uneasily while thinking it over.

"Get lost, pervert!" Naru seethed as kicks him high into the sky.

"He's really flying high," Keitaro marveled flatly as he watches Kentaro sail over Hinata City.

"Are you all right, Sarah-chan!?" Shinobu asked her with worry as she clasps her shoulders.

"I . . . I think so," she answered absently with an equally worried look as well.

"Don't worry," Motoko said. "That abomination for a male won't be coming around here anymore. Right, Haruka-kun? Because the fact that he never intended to molest Sarah-chan only means that he did intend to molest Naru-sempai instead."

"Perhaps," she began to drawl, "I can consider his debts paid off, seeing as he is now extremely close to it."

* * *

Kentaro finally lands in the outskirts of Hinata City into a trashbin. There he lies for a moment, a thoroughly humiliated man after having done the most stupidest thing in the world. Because he now knows that even if she had turn out to be Naru in the first place, then he would have ended up getting launched into orbit from the start.

Over Kentaro's entire school life, he had pursued Naru, and for what? Nothing. He never achieved anything with her. Then so be it. He will just have to let her go and let Keitaro have her. In a way, he feels relieved because that means he won't wind up being her punching bag in the end, but Keitaro will. As for that mishap, Haruka understands and won't have charges pressed against him.

He finally climbs out of the dumpster with garbage strewn all over himself. After cleaning himself off as best he can, he ambles away.


End file.
